The formula is 25% our winning percentage, 21% our opponents winning percentage and 54% our opponents oppenents winning percentage. I would think a tie would count as half a win and half a loss. So our winning percentage would only go down slightly, mainly offset by NDs going down anyways and then the 54% part is the same either way.

Love fast cars. Fortunately have been able to have many over the years - a few Mustang 5.0's, a 2005 Corvette and currently a 2013 GT500. I like dependability and ruggedness as well. While not fast, loved my 2000 Jeep Wrangler with the 4.0L straight six.

But our offense needs to be better all around. Those teams had better QB, RB and O line play. We may be comparable at receiver and TE. I think it is the coaching more than the talent. As others have posted, we have highly rated kids and we have also put quite a few in the NFL. We need a Don Brown level OC. And position coaches like Mattison. Maybe we get there, maybe not. Just depends how cutthroat Harbaugh wants to be.

I think the biggest difference is that college football is near life or death in the South. Not so in Ann Arbor. I am not sure the Southern approach is right, but it does drive accountability. Just look at the last 10 champions: Bama 5x, Florida, Clemson, FSU, Auburn and OSU. Thats 9 teams from the deep south. And OSU borders on having that near life or death approach.

If Pittsburgh wins and New England loses, Pittsburgh gets home field. While unlikely that New England loses as playing 5-11 Jets, the games are at the same time and I don’t think Pittsburgh is going to cash it in under the assumption New England will win.

If Peters plays well, I think he will stay the starter. If Peters has typical freshman moments, I think you could see Speight. That assumes Speight gets cleared by the doctors. I think Speight will play some again this year if cleared. With our O line and just the nature of football, QBs get hurt. Speight came in for Ruddock in 2015. O’Korn came in for Speight last year and this year.

MSU, OSU, Notre Dame all at home. 2 easy non conference games. Crossover games are Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin. At Wisconsin is game 3 and B1G opener. Could be a tough one. But other road games are at Illinois, at Penn State, at Maryland and at Indiana. Other than Penn State, should be manageable.

Peters will be a RS Junior and McCaffrey a RS Sophomore. We will have an entire team of Harbaugh's recruits.

If we havent made a serious run by then, not sure it is going to happen under Harbaugh.

Especially against weaker teams. But his teams were never complete. Defense always lagged and a fair amount of reliance on one guy make them highly susceptible to injury. Can’t really see him winning championships until he gets both sides of the ball working. His teams are generally the opposite of what we have now.

I will say, if you are going to have an incomplete team, a good offense makes for more entertaining games than a good defense.

I was also pondering our biggest road win. In my memory I came up with 1996 at OSU. They were ranked #2, were undefeated at 10-0 and would go on to beat undefeated #2 Arizona State in the Rose Bowl. OSU finished #2 that year.

As for OSU, the defense, as Brian has pointed out, is sort of designed to take out an OSU type offense. They stopped OSU last year (14 of OSU's 17 regulation points were off turnovers). We have home field and a good kicking game. If the offense can get a handle on the turnovers by then, I like our chances.

Did Purdue not get anything for beating Missouri? Seems like we didnt pick up anything but I guess if Missouri lost the week before, they would have nothing. And maybe Ohio had nothing or it is down there with our Cincinnati conquest. So conquering the conquerors of nothing doesnt get you much.......

Harbaugh wants to keep the others fresh for B1G play. O'Korn then starts the B1G opener but rotates every snap with Peters to get best sample to determine who should be the backup to Speight. But Harbaugh holds Speight out until the second half of the OSU game so he has a very fresh arm for the B1G Championship game and the playoff run.....

Some guys seem like they like just owning a nice car, they take it for a sunday dirve now and then and spend the rest of the time just polishing it. To me thats okay as they bought it and they can do what they like with it. Their vehicle will also hold value better.

And for the record, I am not one of those guys. While I dont have a Ferrari, I do have a 2013 Shelby GT500 that is my daily driver in the non winter months.

I prefer a classic piney gin like tanqueray or beefeater even. Some of the newer more popular gins have moved to other flavors. Now sometimes a Hendricks (cucumber) or some other flavor is a nice change of pace.

Losing to a secondary rival 2 out of 3 years is pretty bad. Especially when we have a decent chance of being 0-3 against OSU. Being 1-5 against our two main rivals that we play regularly is a terrible start. Especially with 4 of those games in the Big House.

I will have 2 full days and 2 half days of free time. Planned on seeing the touristy stuff, Vatican, Coliseum, etc. Any suggestions on what to do there appreciated. I am not looking to visit other parts of Italy on this trip.

Not really sure on the slowest. I had a 2003 Jeep Liberty which was pretty slow. The least favorite car I have owned. I replaced that with a beat up used 2000 Jeep Wrangler that had the 4 liter straight 6. It was also pretty slow but I loved that car.

I can remember paying a scalper $55 each in the 80s for 2 nose bleed seats when I was in high school. That seemed like a giant amount of money at the time. But I had never been to a game and I wanted to see Michigan's stacked team play Minnesota who was also quite good at the time.

Toss up against Florida
Heavy favorites in 7 games: Cincinnati, Air Force, at Purdue, MSU, Rutgers, Minnesota, at Maryland.
Slight favorite at Indiana.
Underdog at Penn St, at Wisconsin and against OSU.

Vegas over/under of 8.5 - 3.5 regular season. Get a couple breaks that go our way (after they all went against us last year) and maybe 10-2 again. Pretty good for a rebuilding year.

Its not like the Pistons have taken off under Gore. I would rather have someone like Dan Gilbert buy the Tigers. He got Cleveland a championship. Maybe he could buy the Tigers and Lions together, the Big Cat package deal.

Not a lot of fire. Stunned we don't have more talent after the title run. Back then it seemed like we were on the way to great things but now we just seem to be destined to be a perpetual bubble team or worse.

One thing I always wonder is why they say Belein knows more about basketball than most anyone. I mean, I am sure that is true when you compare to the population on the planet, but does he really know more than the other top college coaches and if so, why can't he coach a defense?

Not a lot of fire. Stunned we don't have more talent after the title run. Back then it seemed like we were on the way to great things but now we just seem to be destined to be a perpetual bubble team or worse.

One thing I always wonder is why they say Belein knows more about basketball than most anyone. I mean, I am sure that is true when you compare to the population on the planet, but does he really know more than the other top college coaches and if so, why can't he coach a defense?

At least Harbaugh has raised the bar to where Brian considers 10-3 a mediocre season...

Definitely not elite, but I think we finished ranked #10 and #12 the last two seasons.

Personally, I think the young talent combined with good coaching and a somewhat favorable schedule (Florida, at PSU, at Wisconsin, OSU plus a bowl opponent are the likely tough games) probably puts us around 10-3 again.

Beilein is just not recruiting enough talent. Hard to see us contending for national titles unless he becomes better at recruiting. Very surprising to me how we got very little lift from making the NCAA championship game and then the elite 8. Not saying he needs the Calipari bagmen but seems like we could do better.

I agree with another poster on this thread, I have just turned to not really caring. 2 Big 10 titles in 9 seasons is pretty good, but the future looks bleak.

Unless you are super on top of information (like Wolverine Devotee) and post it within minutes of it coming out, it will have already been posted unless it is way OT and then you likely should not post it all all.

If you go by what has been accomplished, I think you would have to put Saban first and Meyer second. They are the only active coaches with mulitple national titles and both did it at 2 schools.

Based on accomplishment, not even sure Harbaugh would be third as one could argue that a Chris Peterson or Jimbo Fisher has accomplished more.

But Harbaugh has a pretty short college coaching career compared to Saban, Meyer and Peterson. In each situation he has been in, there has been quick improvement. But he has never really stuck around long enough to get his machine rolling as there was always a better opportunity to move on to. Closest thing was his last year at Stanford where he had a very good season, finishing #4 and 12-1. If you looked at future potential, Harbaugh could be the best of the bunch.

Even if possible, I dont think I would trade him for any other college coach right now. Saban is getting up in age. If I had to trade him, I would take in order: Meyer, Peterson, Saban (only 3rd due to age).

Woody, Bo, Lou Holtz, all would be jawing with the ref's. Heck, Bobby Knight threw a chair.

It is a little different age, but I dont really think it is a big deal that Harbaugh is so emotional. In fact, I like it, he lives or dies by how his team does.. I have seen Saban pretty upset on the sideline.

Our strongest case is if PSU beats Wisconsin and Colorado beats Washington. Clemson losing would help too but seems long odds.

Unfortunately, I think we will be on the outside looking in.

I really think they should expand to 8 teams and give the Power 5 Champs automatic bids and have 3 wildcards. Yes, it would diminish the regular season, but so far there have been too many top teams left out. TCU, Baylor in 2014, OSU last year, likely M this year.

I just remember being worried we would fumble and purdue would run it back and win 7-5. As it was, I am not sure they really ever crossed the 50 yard line.

I was at the 2008 Northwestern game as well. Purdue game was worse weather wise.

Part of it is how you are dressed though. I froze as a student during the 1989 M - ND game in the rain but all I had on for "rain gear" was a "poncho" made out of a garbage bag. The Rocket running two kickoffs back didnt help either.

I told my friends before the game that it was almost certainly the last time Franklin was going to be in the Big House as coach of Penn St. Our blowout of them just reinforced that in my mind. Yet now they are like a different team.

I was feeling a little uneasy after our first 3 possessions, We had 8 yards or so total and I was thinking, how did OSU beat them 58-0? Then it became pretty obvious. A little hard to believe a 78-0 game started with two 3 and outs and a pick.

Waste of time firing Caldwell, the Lions organization is the problem. Bellicheck wouldn't win there. The Fords should do Detroit a favor and sell the team to Dan Gilbert. He got Cleveland a championship after a gazillion years of losing

As long as he scrapes his way into a bowl by getting to 6-6, I could see him being around for next year. But his seat will be scorching hot next year. I think given the sanctions and the prolonged down spell PSU has been in, they may be more accomodating to Franklin than M was to RRod. But I would be shocked if he steps into M Stadium in 2018 as the Penn State head coach. There just doesnt seem to be any upward trajectory and I think 4 season of .500 football will doom him.

Penn State is 2-2 now and the only near sure loss they have going forward is OSU. Home versus Maryland and Minnesota and away at Purdue and at Rutgers are winnable. Home versus MSU and Iowa and at Indiana seem less likely. My guess is though, short of getting to 6-6, he probably gets canned.

He was 7-6 in both his first two seasons, not a lot of room to get worse without some fan upheavel. Although O'Brien was 8-4 and 7-5 in his two seasons, so PSU might be somewhat used to a mediocre team now.

But those answers seem to say more "nothing" than the average press conference. Did I miss something or did he just keep saying everyone did good and working to improve to most of the questions? Seems like the submarine is operating on a high alert level.

At 52, not sure how well Harbaugh would hold up. Although his pocket awareness probably good enough he could avoid some of the hits.

And then Brady, I would have to believe after all the top level pro competition that he would be incredibly unbelievable. Would be interesting to see how good his stats would be. 90+% downfield success rate on Brian's chart?

Interesting fact. I looked it up because i couldnt understand how that could happen but you are right. Tyler fathered a son in his 60s and his son fathered two sons in his 70s. Crazy to think someone alive today could have had a grandfather born in 1790.

If Don's family followed this timeline, and Don was the equivalent of the younger of the two Tyler grandchildren alive today, Don wouldnt be born until 1920.......

Other than Saban's 5 titles and Meyer's 2, you have LSU with a lot of Saban's recruits and Auburn with one of the best QB's money could buy. So while the SEC does have 9 of this millenium's 16 titles, without Saban's 5, no one would be talking about it. Put Saban at USC or Texas and he would be winning there.

Clearly, that area of the country has a lot of talent, but I think it is more you have one of the greatest coaches of all time in the league.